Search and Rescue
Coast Guard Aviation is a Calling.
Coast Guard Aviation has multi- mission responsibilities and performs them all very well but it is the Search and Rescue mission that defines Coast Guard Aviation. The aircrews have known the fist of fear and a mouth so dry it was hard to talk. They also have experienced the elation that comes with the knowledge that they have saved a person’s life. It transcends. They take justifiable pride in what they are able to accomplish and are humbled by what they could not. There is an aura of camaraderie and dedication.
These accounts represent only a few the heroic efforts shown by Coast Guard men and women who respond to the call.
The Bluebird Rescue
This rescue involved the first high seas deployment of a rescue swimmer and is a tribute to the persistence and professionalism of Coast Guard men and women who perform rescues each and every day....
Kodiak Coast Guard HH-60 Helicopter Crash
This article from the Anchorage Daily News is the account of the crash in the words of the Pilot at the controls (Copilot) during the rescue attempt and at the time of the crash....
Underwater Discovery Unravels Mystery
On March 7, 1967 UF-2G CGNR 1240 apparently met with disaster and after extensive searches was never found. The bodies of 3 of the 6 crew members aboard were never found. Recently, in July 2006,...
You Have To Go Out, But You Don’t Have To Come Back
A U.S. Coast Guard PBM-5 seaplane CGNR 59012 had the left wing float and five feet of the left wing tip were torn away during a night JATO lift off from rough open ocean waters medivac. Pilots...
Swatow, China, January 1953, P2V ditching, PBM crash and rescue
I’ll always remember "Big John" as we TransPac-ed PBM-5G No. 84738 together, worked and flew together, and were off Swatow where No. 84738 crashed and sank. John later told me when he was...
Storm God and Heroes
The story of the La Conte is based on interviews with 11 Coast Guard helicopter flight crew members involved in the rescue; three members of the ground crew; Coast Guard spokesmen in Juneau,...
HMS Bounty Rescue
As Hurricane Sandy approached land, the HMS Bounty and 16 sailors aboard were in dire need of help. More than 90 miles off the coast of Hatteras, N.C., the three-masted sailing vessel had lost...
The Jolly Greens – The Story of the Rescue of Scotch 3
On 1 July Scotch 3, an F-105 Thunderchief was hit by anti –aircraft fire. Lt. Col. Jack Modica, the pilot, thought he could stay airborne long enough to reach the Gulf....
Russian Medevac
The message came from the 54-foot Trudovaja Slava, a large Soviet factory ship on station off the New England coast. Since the Soviet fishing fleet operated in a world of their own and rarely...
Ocean Express
Ocean Express, an unusual ocean going vessel, was, in reality, a movable offshore oil-drilling rig, in the form of a barge nearly 200 feet long and over 100 feet wide. Buildings on the barge’s...
Mayday – The Ocean Crusader
About 10:20 pm on 5 July, 2000, HH-65 CGNR 6539 was heading back to base after monitoring a swamp fire east of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana and heard “Mayday Mayday Mayday - Ocean Crusader –...
Manislov – This is Bill
This story appeared in "Alaska Magazine" in 1979 and was also featured in the Commandants' Bulletin a couple of times. Recently a book, "Adak, the rescue of Alfa Foxtrot 586" by Andrew Jampoler...
“It’s Christmas, Daddy”
Two days before Christmas 1955, a helicopter rescue took place that changed the direction of Coast Guard aviation occurred on the two days before Christmas 1955. This case firmly bonded the...
Rescue of Survivors of Sabena Airline Crash 1946
It may not be staggering to the average American or even Coast Guard Aviators today, but one must be mindful that this was the first ever major rescue for the helicopters in question and was to...
Northwest Flight 292 Rescue
In the relatively quiet, wee hours of the morning of 14 July 1960, Mr. E.R. Lizada was on duty at the Manila Radio Station. Over the last hour, he had received several routine reports from...
AST1 Willard Milam USCG
This narrative recounts the actions of AST1 Willard Milam as an individual, but the rescue, like so many others, displays the elements inherent in all rescues; Coast Guardsmen willing to put...
The Coast Guard Flight Crew
There is a special relationship between crewmembers which is unique to Coast Guard Aviation. Academically this could be identified as a shared mental model or mindset. In operational language, it...
The Goat and the Goat Herders
The Albatross was designed for optimal 4 ft seas, and could land in more severe conditions. With JATO takeoffs could be made in 5- 9 ft. seas. There have been take-offs made without JATO that...
The HH-52A and Those Who Flew It
On January 9, 1963 the U.S. Coast Guard received the first of 99 Sikorsky S-62's which were given the designation HH-52A and the name "Seaguard", a name which never caught on amongst those who flew it....
Biscayne Bay Professionalism
Late in the afternoon of April 16, 1950, William Strecker and Gus Detrick of Miami, FL made ready Strecker’s 35-foot cabin cruiser, Moonlight, for an evening of fishing. The most important thing...
A Tragic Good Friday – 11 April 1952
A U.S. Coast Guard PBY-5A amphibian. In a sister aircraft, number 48429, pilots Bilderback and Natwig landed in rough ocean waters to rescue sixteen survivors of a DC-6 which had crashed off San...
A Selfless Calling
There were 11 Coast Guard Aviators that flew with these rescue forces in Vietnam between 1968 and 1972. They were all volunteers – they were all highly praised. The following relates a mission...
The Minimum And The Maximum
In 1945, an RCAF Aircraft crashed in northern Labrador. After 2 rescue fixed wing aircraft crashed in trying to rescue the original survivors, the Coast Guard was asked to attempt the rescue by...
Rescue in Newfoundland – Sabena Air Crash
This publication is the account of the efforts and successful rescue of survivors from the crash of a Sabena Airlines C-54 in Newfoundland near to Gander. The text is from official reports...
St. Petersburg Hall Boat Seaplane Lost
Demonstrating the quiet courage expected in a service which teaches its members that then "must go out but don't have to come back", six Coast Guard airmen had a harrowing experience when they...
The Miracle Rescue: The Prinsendam
After a fire in the engine room stopped the cruise liner Prinsendam dead in the water, the Coast Guard moved into action to rescue all 520 passengers and crew....
CG 1426 The Burmah Agate- Mimosa Tanker Fire
On the morning of November 1, 1979, the Burmah Agate, inbound to Galveston Bay with a full load of fuel, collided with the outbound freighter Mimosa just outside the entrance to the Galveston Bay...